Fionn Regan Returns, His Feathery Acoustic Sweetness Intact

Fionn Regan's new album, The Meetings Of The Waters, comes out April 14.
Autumn De Wilde/Courtesy of the artist
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Autumn De Wilde/Courtesy of the artist

Fionn Regan's new album, The Meetings Of The Waters, comes out April 14.

Autumn De Wilde/Courtesy of the artist

It's been about 10 years since Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan made his U.S. debut with The End Of History, a Mercury Prize-nominated collection of soft-spoken acoustic folk-pop songs in the tradition of Damien Rice and Nick Drake. Back then, Regan got lost in a glut of like-minded performers, compounded by label woes, and he hasn't been heard from very often — in the U.S., anyway — in the decade since.

Regan's first album to come out here since 2011, The Meetings Of The Waters, comes out next month. Its new single, "Cormorant Bird," does a nice job picking up on the feathery acoustic sweetness and poetic ambition of the singer's early work, while adding a bit of orchestral sweep to his approachable, plainspoken sound.

"'Cormorant Bird,' like a lot of my songs, feels to me as though it came from nowhere," Regan writes NPR Music via email. "It just evolved into being. In the lyrics — 'You pulled a rainbow from my skull / And you said look at that / The fire you have within / Will never dim its climb / The cloud pulled its curtain / But a light stayed where you sat / In the blackberry bush / Were the bulbs shatter white" — I'm talking about inner light prevailing. For me, this song has a certain kinship with some of my earlier songs from The End Of History."

The Meetings Of The Waters Tracklist

1. The Meetings Of The Waters 2. Cormorant Bird 3. Turn The Skies Of Blue On 4. Cape Of Diamonds 5. Book Of The Moon 6. Babushka-Yai Ya 7. 愛 Ai 8. Wall Of Silver 9. Euphoria 10. Up Into The Rafters 11. 常に愛 Tsuneni Ai

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